Set Piece Adventure on Kauai
May. 11th, 2007 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakThe traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." –Daniel J. Boorstin
The previous day we had signed up for a number of excursions from the ship. We had signed up for three things without a huge amount of thought on my part and some of them were not as cool as I might have hoped from the price, but on this morning it was all ahead of me. One of the many restrictions that we had to work around was the fact that if Richie ate anywhere on the ship except the crew cafeteria, where I could not eat with him, he had to wear the Catholic School standard outfit: slacks (no jeans, no shorts), a shirt with a collar, shoes (no sandals), and also his name tag. In addition he could not eat in any of the restaurants onboard without special permission and they were deeply reluctant to give it. So he would change into this outfit just to eat and then wear something different and more comfortable when we went onshore.
Breakfast was decent and I gave a quick phone call to Rose, as I remember. Though it could have also been at breakfast the next day. She said to suck it up or something similar when I complained about the tea. Bah, bah, it is very hard being a tea drinker in an unsympathetic coffee drinking world. Well more reasonably it was not a disaster, it just went against the cultural expectations of a cruise ship being a place where nearly every wish can be catered to for a price.
Our first excursion took us to some sightseeing events on a bus driven by a local who imparted quite a bit of extra information about the island, from imported cardinals to the deep purple bougainvillea that was the favorite of Queen Emma who had a retreat upon the island. We saw a state park, a waterfall, and traveled by boat to a cave called Fern Grotto a short distance up the Wailua River.
The experience was very tourist. The boat trip had a certain blue-collar charm to it, but I felt a bit shuffled about and worried vaguely about being a sort of intruder. I worried that I was being a bit of the stereotypical ugly American watching the quaint native traditions. In some ways the lu'au was the same way. It was dinner and a show and when I could think of it as a play, no different than the Country Dinner Playhouse back home in Denver it didn't feel bad. But there was all the free flowing alcohol and my fellow tourists. It gave it a feel like we were saps to be anesthetized so we'd complain less about the fleecing. I might have felt better if the drinks were not included.
I did like the food. Even the poi, taro paste, especially when I combined it with some poke. The latter is a sort of salsa made with raw fish. Perhaps because of how it looks it tasted a lot like salsa. The raw fish aspect of poke freaked out some of the people at our table. And I worried about too much lovey stuff with Richie lest there be some sort of scene. Nothing happened and I worry too much about such things. We kept to hugs until we got back to the ship.
Some of Richie's shipmates said this was one of the better lu'au events. I am glad that I did it, though I might not have done the river trip and tour stuff. And the food was not bad. Tomorrow I think there will be photos and maybe a new icon.
The previous day we had signed up for a number of excursions from the ship. We had signed up for three things without a huge amount of thought on my part and some of them were not as cool as I might have hoped from the price, but on this morning it was all ahead of me. One of the many restrictions that we had to work around was the fact that if Richie ate anywhere on the ship except the crew cafeteria, where I could not eat with him, he had to wear the Catholic School standard outfit: slacks (no jeans, no shorts), a shirt with a collar, shoes (no sandals), and also his name tag. In addition he could not eat in any of the restaurants onboard without special permission and they were deeply reluctant to give it. So he would change into this outfit just to eat and then wear something different and more comfortable when we went onshore.
Breakfast was decent and I gave a quick phone call to Rose, as I remember. Though it could have also been at breakfast the next day. She said to suck it up or something similar when I complained about the tea. Bah, bah, it is very hard being a tea drinker in an unsympathetic coffee drinking world. Well more reasonably it was not a disaster, it just went against the cultural expectations of a cruise ship being a place where nearly every wish can be catered to for a price.
Our first excursion took us to some sightseeing events on a bus driven by a local who imparted quite a bit of extra information about the island, from imported cardinals to the deep purple bougainvillea that was the favorite of Queen Emma who had a retreat upon the island. We saw a state park, a waterfall, and traveled by boat to a cave called Fern Grotto a short distance up the Wailua River.
The experience was very tourist. The boat trip had a certain blue-collar charm to it, but I felt a bit shuffled about and worried vaguely about being a sort of intruder. I worried that I was being a bit of the stereotypical ugly American watching the quaint native traditions. In some ways the lu'au was the same way. It was dinner and a show and when I could think of it as a play, no different than the Country Dinner Playhouse back home in Denver it didn't feel bad. But there was all the free flowing alcohol and my fellow tourists. It gave it a feel like we were saps to be anesthetized so we'd complain less about the fleecing. I might have felt better if the drinks were not included.
I did like the food. Even the poi, taro paste, especially when I combined it with some poke. The latter is a sort of salsa made with raw fish. Perhaps because of how it looks it tasted a lot like salsa. The raw fish aspect of poke freaked out some of the people at our table. And I worried about too much lovey stuff with Richie lest there be some sort of scene. Nothing happened and I worry too much about such things. We kept to hugs until we got back to the ship.
Some of Richie's shipmates said this was one of the better lu'au events. I am glad that I did it, though I might not have done the river trip and tour stuff. And the food was not bad. Tomorrow I think there will be photos and maybe a new icon.